Charting the growth of solar

By Emma Peterson. 

As the popularity of solar continues to rise, diversifying your offerings has become crucial to success. 

In a new episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Karen Edwards hosted a panel from ABC Supply for a discussion about the growing demand for rooftop solar. On the panel was Anthony Romero, the business development manager for the Central U.S. region at ABC Supply, Eric Cieslak, the business development manager for the Western U.S. region, and Rob Smith, who covers everything east of the Mississippi.  

Anthony kicked off the conversation by giving a bit of context to the growth of solar, sharing, “We've seen steady growth over the past few years up until we saw a huge spike in '21 and '22. Then, last year, it had a little drop. But even with that, all the indicators are saying that it's going to continue to grow and we're going to surpass the numbers that we were seeing in '21 and '22.”  

There are multiple factors driving this forecast of growth, one of which is incentives directed at homeowners. Rob explained, “There are federal tax incentives, then also local incentives and utility incentives that are helping this large boom on the solar side of things. Overall, there’s a 30% federal tax credit [currently] in place. In some rural areas, you also have the Rural Energy for America Program grant, which is geared more towards agricultural type installations on hog farms, chicken farms, so on and so forth.” 

Altogether, this growth represents a huge opportunity for contractors in the roofing industry. Eric explained, “We are seeing both solar contractors and roofing contractors become more of a hybrid construction company with the capability of doing roofing and solar in-house. It just makes sense if they’re already up there.” This type of diversification not only opens your company up to new business opportunities, but also helps you stand out in the competitive roofing industry.  

Read the transcript or Listen to the episode to learn more about expanding your contracting business into the solar market.